Clouds on Mars

[rota]

Clouds on Mars do not interest me very much as I always figured they were up there. I did however come across this image a long time ago that looks very much like clouds. I know that NASA has finally admitted that there is water up on Mars but I'm not sure if they have ever said there were clouds.

Do you think these are clouds?



photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA11308.jpg

[Marsrocks]

They look like clouds to me, and the image caption agrees with both of us:

"Dust clouds often can obscure the surface of Mars. When an image captures the edge of a dust storm front the loss of surface information is more than compensated for by the information that can be gleaned from analysis of the image. As dust storm formation and location are unpredictable, any images of such features are priceless."

photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA11308

rota, the rovers have also caught some cloud formations overhead. I'll have to round up some of those images for you when I get a chance.

[rota]

Aug 30, 2009 18:23:30 GMT -5 Marsrocks said:

They look like clouds to me, and the image caption agrees with both of us:

"Dust clouds often can obscure the surface of Mars. When an image captures the edge of a dust storm front the loss of surface information is more than compensated for by the information that can be gleaned from analysis of the image. As dust storm formation and location are unpredictable, any images of such features are priceless."

photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA11308

rota, the rovers have also caught some cloud formations overhead. I'll have to round up some of those images for you when I get a chance.

Interesting. I would think a dust storm would be on the surface and water clouds would be higher. Too bad you can't tell if those clouds are on the surface or not. either way there must be quite an athmosphere with string winds to produce that.


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[Marsrocks]

Here's more Mars cloud links:

marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/MPF/science/clouds.html

www.phys.ncku.edu.tw/~astrolab/mirrors/apod_e/ap010417.html

strangepaths.com/page/3/en/

www.nasaimages.org/luna/servlet/detail/nasaNAS~4~4~14957~117677:Clouds-in-North-Polar-Region-Tracke

Phoenix lander:

[Marsrocks]

I think rota is right about how clouds look from satellite:

Take a look at the clouds above the Opportunity rover:

www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2004/05/11/

And many other weather reports from Malin:

www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/mer_weather/

such as this one showing how clouds appear:

www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/mer_weather/weather/08.14.May.04.MER.html

[Marsrocks]

Using the moc images, we see what clouds look like. The area marked by the white area is clouds over Meridiani:

They're calling these water-ice clouds.




Same - but showing how it would look in grayscale:



They refer to these as cirrus type water-ice clouds over Meridiani:

[Marsrocks]

This is a terrific animation from rota's blog - showing clouds passing over the Phoenix lander:





www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/images/press/16405.html

secretofmars.blogspot.com/

[Marsrocks]

[Marsrocks]

MPF clouds:







mars.jpl.nasa.gov/MPF/science/clouds.html

[Marsrocks]

Possibly even larger clouds seen on Mars - at around 150 miles from its surface:

www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2119623/Is-life-Mars-Well-certainly-looks-like-CLOUDS.html#ixzz1qHXwSboq

[Marsrocks]

Take a look at these clouds taken by hirise:


www.uahirise.org/ESP_025914_2540

[Marsrocks]

Clouds from hirise:




www.youtube.com/watch?v=4V-5-Wwgiz0